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About Brighton Solfed

We are a local anarcho-syndicalist union supporting all workers of all industries, in and out of paid work.Currently we're most active in Hospitality and in Health and Social Care. We are based in Brighton but we have members further afield such as in Hastings and Worthing. If you want to get in touch with us, see our contact details to the right.

Who we are

Brighton SolFed is an independent union based on the idea that through solidarity and direct action, ordinary people have the power to improve our lives - and ultimately create a new society.

Our members are workers, students and others looking to build a libertarian working class movement. Our aim is to promote solidarity in our workplaces and outside them, encouraging workers to organise independently of bosses, bureaucrats and political parties to fight for our own interests as a class. Our ultimate goal is a stateless, classless society based on the principle of ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’ – libertarian communism.

We see such a society based on our needs being created out of working class struggles to assert our needs in the here and now. Our activity is therefore aimed at promoting, assisting and developing such class struggles, which both benefit us all now and bring us closer to the society we want to create. We do this according to the following principles:

Solidarity. As individuals we are relatively powerless in the face of bosses, bureaucrats and the state, but when we act collectively across all boundaries of race, gender, nationality the tables are turned.

Direct action. We do not make appeals to political or economic representatives to act on our behalf, but organise to get the things we want for ourselves.

Self-organisation. When we take control of our own struggles we both learn how to act without bosses or leaders and ensure we can’t be sold out or demobilised from above.

We live in a society with deeply entrenched structural prejudices - racism, sexism, homophobia but there are others - that marginalise certain workers and undermine the possibility of building genuine working class solidarity. We wholeheartedly reject these oppressions - but it’s easy to say that, we also need to build a culture of solidarity where we are open to criticism of our own behaviour, especially when it comes from those whose experiences differ from our own. Only by doing this can we hope to build a libertarian communist movement that is truly free of oppression.

What we do

We believe in direct action solidarity. That could mean pickets or occupations, or organising with your co-workers - check the pages of our hospitality campaign and in health & social care for concrete examples and reports. We also believe in collective action – that we are stronger when we stand together. Discuss your problem with us and we’ll make suggestions how we could help – but the decision what course of action to take always rests with you.

We do this in our free time and we’ll help you out for free… so why would we do this? We are not a service provider – we can’t provide professional legal advice, and we can’t solve your problems for you. We are not a government-sanctioned trade union or political party. What we are is fellow workers who are sick of being screwed around ourselves and want to do something about it. What we can do is share experience, information, and support in methods which have proven effective previously.

This is solidarity, not charity. That means that if we help you with a problem, we may get in touch to ask you to help someone else, perhaps in a similar situation to yourself. Obviously the choice whether you do or not is up to you, but our goal is more than just helping individuals: we want to build a culture of solidarity amongst ordinary people, so that when bosses or landlords or or cops mess with one of us, they’re messing with all of us. It’s time to stand up to Brighton’s bosses and bureaucrats, landlords and letting agents.

As a group we are also involved in a number of local campaigns including the Brighton Benefits Campaign, Migrant Solidarity, we have supported local strikes for examples at City Clean. Only when we stand collectively and take direct action in our own interests are we able to defend ourselves. If you are interested in getting involved or have a problem you’d like to do something about, then get in touch.

Get involved!

There are many ways to get involved with us:

Keep up to date with what we're doing by subsbribing to our Twitter feed, our facebook page, or simply checking for news on this website.

if you want to support other workers who have decided to fight back, we're always looking for more people to come along to pickets or other protests - the best way is to email us

if you want to organise in your workplace or outside, then let us know because we run training workshops every few months. Occasionally we also screen films or hold public meetings.